Greetings LINCS Community,
The LINCS Community team wishes you a happy new year during this first full work week of 2014! Before we engage in many fruitful conversations this year, we wanted to draw your attention back to some of the most beneficial and thought-provoking discussions that took place in our community last year. Take a look at the threads below that most interest you. You may find a resource to help you in your practice, or you may wish to add to the comments to continue talking about these topics.
Happy reading and posting!
The LINCS Community Team
Adult English Language Learners: Commenters on this discussion thread presented many resources for assisting those teaching reading to adult ELLs with diverse literacy backgrounds.
Assessment: The Assessment group discussed a member’s suggestion that “thoughtful, appropriate assessment equals effective teaching.” The thread focuses on how programs use information, which outlines features of formative assessment.
Career Pathways: Several participants suggested online resources featuring job specific vocabulary and speech in this conversation.
College and Career Standards: This discussion summarized and expanded upon a webinar on Kentucky Adult Education’s Common Core Standards Professional Development Materials. Kentucky program administrators and instructors weighed in on the state’s Standards-in-Action Professional Development model.
Correctional Education: This conversation discusses possibilities for a change in the culture of corrections, for example, through revising the words and phrases used to discussed the population served by correctional education services.
Disabilities in Adult Education: This discussion surrounded the process of screening for learning disabilities and focused on a resource from the LINCS collection that helps teachers, parents, and students to gather information with specific attention to characteristics that might be early warning signs of learning disabilities.
Diversity and Literacy: A thread in 2013 in the Diversity group shared an article on several aspects of diversity, including cultural awareness and recognizing trauma, and led to the sharing of several related resources from community members.
Financial Literacy: This discussion post highlights FAFSA4caster, a free financial aid calculator that gives individuals considering college or career schools an early estimate of their eligibility for federal student aid.
Health Literacy: Wrapping up a four-part series, this discussion examines how members are integrating health literacy into ABE or ESOL programs.
Math and Numeracy: Community members discussed the implications and results of compressed mathematics courses.
Postsecondary Completion: A cross-post between College and Career Standards and Postsecondary Completion, this conversation talks about how states are moving forward to get their adult students college and career ready.
Professional Development: As a follow up to the recent LINCS Community User Training webinar, this thread discusses tips for maximizing your participation in our community.
Program Management: Teachers and additional adult education practitioners discussed the topic of adult student motivation and persistence, including methods for student goal setting.
Reading and Writing: Members of the Reading and Writing group talked about partnerships between adult literacy programs and libraries, including how and why students use libraries, and how literacy-related public library services can be improved.
Science: Many community members who have taken the LINCS online course, Engaging Adult Learners in Science, have posted valuable reflections in this thread.
Technology and Learning: This discussion series considered the question, “How can technology transform adult education and current practice” and included reflections on the draft report: Connected Teaching and Personalized Learning: Implications of the National Education Technology Plan (NETP) for Adult Education.